SALVATION WITHOUT FAITH!
“He that believeth not shall be condemned.”—JESUS CHRIST.
Dear Brother:
Conversing a few days ago on the merits of Elpis Israel, one of the brethren who had read it, stated his concurrence in most of the things therein contained. But after all, he says he cannot assent to the exclusion of the heathen, &c., from the salvation promised in the gospel.
The salvation of the heathen then became the subject of discussion between us; brethren D. and B. contending for their salvation on some other principle than that of faith in the gospel; and I for it on no other.
I attempted to prove, and I think did prove, that the faith was the only principle laid down in the Old and New Scriptures upon which a man can be saved; and that they made no exception in relation to the heathen. To this they objected; and in support of their opinion quoted the second chapter of Romans. I demurred to this, that “Gentile” there spoken of as keeping “The righteousness of the law,” could not mean the Gentiles in the sense understood by them, —a good, conscientious, virtuous, benevolent Gentile; but a gentile christian. In support of this I attempted to show that, if a gentile could, without ever having heard, or read the law, keep the righteousness of the law, so might a Jew have done; and then there would have been no need of having the law given to them; and thereby much trouble and expense have been saved. —Upon this we separated without coming to any agreement.
I write these few words, therefore, to request you to interpret the Bible teaching on this subject. The term “nature” seems to be the stronghold of the two brethren, and, indeed, of all natural religionists; and the second of Romans the chapter most relied on to prove this most mischievous of all traditions, “Natural Religion.” If you can spare time, we should like to know if the heathen, by beholding the works of the Great Architect of the universe ever came to a knowledge of the living and true God, so as acceptably to worship him, or attain to salvation; or, has the mind of a gentile ever been so operated on by the contemplation of the wonderful works of creation as to impart to him a right to incorruptibility and life?
The doctrine of the Kingdom and Hope of Israel as exhibited by Jesus, the apostles, and yourself, is gaining ground here. I have returned hither (after an absence of three years) where once I met with such decided opposition from the brethren of “the reformation” in the advocacy of these sentiments; and now I meet with but few who do not entertain the same: not that I feel a pride in having first contended for them here; but because I rejoice in the spread of the gospel, and delight to see the Kingdom preached though for the sake of contention only.
Yours faithfully,
E. J. H. WHITE, M. D.
Fayette, Mississippi.
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HEATHEN DEFINED—THE GOSPEL IS FOR THE SALVATION OF THE HEATHEN THROUGH BELIEF OF IT—NONE SAVED BUT THE DOERS OF THE WORD—IGNORANCE ALIENATES FROM ETERNAL LIFE—NATURE’S LOGIC—NATURE DEFINED—ORIGIN OF NATUTAL RELIGION—ITS INVENTERS INDICATED—THINGS IN WHICH THEY AGREE—NATURAL RELIGION AND GOD’S RELIGION IRRECONCILABLE ENEMIES—“BY NATURE” EXPLAINED—HEART CIRCUMCISED GENTILES AND JEWS TO INHERIT THE PROMISES.
Heathen is the Saxon equivalent for the Greek word ethnos, and the Hebrew goi, and properly signifies nation. It is in this sense that it is used in the sacred scriptures. The word Gentile is of the same import, only derived from the Latin gens. All nations, except Israel, being under “times of ignorance,” were merged in hopeless superstition; so that to be of the nations was equivalent to being an idolater: the word heathen, therefore, came to represent a man, or nations, worshipping idols; though the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin originals, are never used in this sense in the scriptures.
The salvation promised in the gospel is the salvation of Israel and the Heathen, in the sense of blessing all nations in Abraham and his Seed, on the principle of individual and national faith and obedience. The gospel has been preached for eighteen centuries to the nations for the salvation of heathen, in the sense of idolaters and natural religionists—“to take out from the Gentiles a people for God’s name.” This people are to be the immortal rulers of the nations, or heathen, in the Age to Come; when the heathen, no longer idolaters and natural religionists, shall be enlightened and “serving the Lord with one consent.” They are then “the nations of the saved,” sitting under their own vines and fig trees, with no tyrants to destroy them, and make them afraid as now. The separation of mankind into nations, however, is finally to cease; and all of the race who attain to eternal life will be merged into Israel then become immortal, by “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body;” as it is written, “I will make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, O Israel, but I will not make a full end of thee”—Jeremiah 30: 11. The last eighteen centuries has been “the Day of Salvation,” the “accepted time,” a day of probation for individuals, who aspire to the glory, honour, and immortality of the Kingdom, as the reward of “the righteousness which is by faith:” the coming thousand years will be a day of blessedness and probation to the nations, saved from the evils now besetting them; in which vastly greater multitudes than now or heretofore, will become heirs of immortality and earth-inhabitation for ever, when the thousand years shall have passed away.
But, what the brethren D. and B. want to know is, is there not salvation from hell for idolaters, and natural religionists, idiots, and sucklings, now, without believing the gospel and being baptised? —They, and not they only, but all antichristendom, say there is salvation for them. —But the Bible has nothing to do with the soul hell they speak of. The salvation it proclaims is the deliverance of God’s people from sin, death, and the grave, and the bestowal upon them of glory and honour forever in his kingdom; and the deliverance of the nations, as already stated. —If they modify their proposition, and affirm that the parties indicated have part in this salvation without faith and its obedience, there is something tangible to lay hold of. Well, if it be so, it can be easily proved. There are the scriptures, show us the testimony; for the burden of proof lies upon D. and B. and the natural religionists. Ah, here they come with the second chapter of the letter to the Romans, telling us that the salvation of sinners without the obedience of faith is taught there! Now behold the proof—
“When the Gentiles having not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.”
But I object to this as perfectly irrelevant, having not the least reference to idol worshippers, or the unenlightened. It refers to Gentile “doers of the law,” in the sense of their being justified by that system of righteousness which is “testified by the law and the prophets.” The “work of the law is written in the hearts” of such persons only, be they Jews or Gentiles. Of Israel under the New Covenant Jehovah says,
“I will put my laws into their mind, and write them upon their hearts.”
How is this done? Take an illustration from the doings on Pentecost. —The righteousness testified by the law and the prophets was put into the mind of the assembled multitude by the voice of the apostles; and written indelibly on their hearts by the divine attestation which miraculously confirmed it. The same thing occurred to the Gentiles afterwards at Cornelius’, where the work of the law was written on the hearts of all his company. When the law was thus written, they “showed the work of the law” in loving the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind, and their neighbours as themselves, in which all the law and the prophets are obeyed—Matthew 22: 37-40; 7: 12; “for love is the fulfilling,” or doing, “of the law”—Romans 13: 10.
The natural religionists do not fairly quote their proof text. They should quote the whole passage. Their text is a reason given in support of the affirmation contained in the preceding verse, which they ought to have quoted to show what the apostle was writing about. The omitted words are, “not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” And even this is but the reason of another affirmation in the verse before, which declares that “as many as have sinned without law (that is, the Gentiles, who were never within the jurisdiction of the law) shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in (or under) the law (that is, the Jews to whom it was enjoined) shall be judged by the law; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” This declaration is contained in the twelfth and sixteenth verses, the proof text of the natural religionists being the fourteenth and fifteenth, which, with the omitted thirteenth, are a parenthesis between. But again, all these verses even are but illustrative off the eleventh; which is itself the reason why God will render to both Jews and Gentiles according to their deeds, as stated from the seventh to the tenth verses both inclusive, that is, “Because there is no respect of persons with him.” Now, from the sixth to the sixteenth verses of the second chapter the doctrine taught is, that Jews and Gentiles are all in the same category with respect to the gospel; because, from the eighteenth verse of chapter one to the fifth of chapter two, the apostle had there “proved, that they are all under sin,” none being righteous, “no, not one;” and “all the world” consequently “guilty before God”—Romans 3: 9, 19. Mankind, then, being none of them “doers of the law,” none of them are justified; and without justification there is no salvation. —What remains, therefore, is only a question of condemnation. Are Jews and Gentiles, equally vile in their conduct before God, to be subjected to execution in the same way? No; the Jews sinning against light, deserve a sorer punishment than the Gentiles who sin under “times of ignorance;” therefore, the Gentiles die and perish; while the Jews are reserved for judgment and execution till the day yet future, when Jesus Christ shall judge them “at his appearing in his Kingdom,” as taught of Paul in the gospel he preached. This implies the non-resurrection of those who being without law sin in times of ignorance; and the resurrection of those who sin under law. Of the former class, it is written in the prophet,
“They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish”—Isaiah 26: 14:
But of them under law, it is written,
“All they in the graves (pantis hoe en tois mnemeiois) shall hear of the Son of Man’s voice, and come forth; they having done good things for a resurrection of life; but they having worked evil things, for a resurrection of judgment”—John 5: 28-29.
So much for the guilty who are all under sin, and therefore heirs of death, being “condemned already.” But, whether that death shall be “unto death” so as to end therein; or, the sinners without law, and under law, shall pass from under sentence of death, and come under a sentence unto eternal life, depends upon both classes becoming obedient to the truth, or “doers of the word:” for it is “he who looks narrowly into the perfect law of liberty, and perseveres, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of work, he shall be blessed in his doing”—James 1: 22, 25.
The Jews and Gentiles in the days of the apostles were all in the same state with respect to God that the idolaters and natural religionists are at the present time—
“Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the perverseness of their heart”—Ephesians 4: 18.
Truth is ever the same. It is therefore as true now as when written, that ignorance alienates from God’s life. Let D. and B. look at this principle without blinking. —Their theory demands the salvation of creatures in their ignorance of “the knowledge of God, and of Jesus the Lord;” but the scriptures place an emphatic veto on the notion, and declare that, “Except a man be converted, and become as a little child, he can in no wise enter the Kingdom of God;” and out of that Kingdom there is no salvation. And again, “Except a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God;” which is equivalent to saying, ‘Except a man believe the gospel of the Kingdom, and is baptised, and raised from the dead incorruptible and immortal, he cannot be saved.’ There is no bliss in ignorance of God’s truth; if there were it would be folly to be wise; because wisdom and knowledge make responsible. —If the ignorant were in a salvable state, it was cruel to send Paul to them, “to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness,” or ignorance, “to light,” or knowledge, because, in so doing, he was bringing them into the jeopardy of persecution, and the hazard of the sorer punishment which is to devour the adversaries at the coming of the Lord. But the truth is, that neither Jews nor Gentiles, of any age, sex, or condition, can be saved, or “inherit the Kingdom,” which is the same thing, who live and die in their ignorance of the truth.
“This is life eternal, that men should know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
Paul was therefore sent “to turn them from the power of Satan to God” by enlightening them, “that they might receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them who are sanctified by faith that is in Jesus”—Acts 26: 18. Now, I argue that if this was necessary for the salvation of the heathen then, it is equally so for their salvation now; and that it was necessary, is proved by the testimony before us. To say that creatures may be saved without faith is to blaspheme, or speak evil of, God and his Christ, and to pronounce the scriptures a falsehood; for they testify that, “he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him.” And again, “without faith it is impossible to please God;” and again, “no man cometh to the Father,” says Jesus, “but through me:” but these are all vain words, and they who uttered them liars, if human creatures “who know not God,” who do not seek him, and are ignorant of the faith; and not only so, but are “filled with all unrighteousness,” have inheritance with the sanctified—if we say, that these may be saved in their ignorance, we in effect proclaim our own faithlessness in the oft-repeated and positive declarations of God to the contrary—we declare it in defiance of testimony, sound reason, and common sense; not the common sense of the unthinking and fleshly multitude, for that is foolishness; but that natural sagacity which is common to the thoughtful and sober-minded among men.
But “nature” is truly the stronghold of natural religionists, although they profess to believe the scriptures. What they call “nature,” that is, their interpretation of nature, is of greater authority with them than a “thus it is written,” or a “thus saith the Lord.” It is their rule of Bible-interpretation; so that if God’s testimony does not speak in accordance with their interpretation of nature, they either reject it with contempt; or, give it a mystical signification; or, admit its truth, and at the same time contend that some contrary and nullifying supposition may be equally true. This last alternative is the gossamer that mantles the hypocritical infidelity of the age. “It is true,” say they, “that ‘he that believes the gospel, and is baptised, shall be saved;’ but it is also true that, if a man sincerely thinks he is right, he will be saved too, although he may not happen to understand the gospel!” “O yes, it is right to be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sins,” says another; ‘but then, baptism in the name is not indispensable to forgiveness!’ ‘We admit,’ say others, that ‘without faith it is impossible to please God;’ but then, kind-hearted heathen, and babes, who are ‘germs of an immortal development—Chr. Mag. Vol. V. No. 7, p. 208, may be, yea are, saved without it!’ ‘Yes, we believe in the resurrection of the dead; that is,’ says the ‘Swedenborgian Christian,’ ‘the awakening of the soul at the last pulsation of the heart in the article of death;’ or, says some other mystic, ‘the revival of the dead in trespasses and sins when they get religion;’ or, says a third, ‘the restoration of the ancient gospel some twenty or thirty years ago!’ Thus it goes in all the world. There is scarcely a single truth admitted, but there is some nullifying hypothesis tacked on to it, by which it is rendered of none effect. And they who practice this call themselves logicians and philosophers. Precious logic to admit the truth of A, and at the same time to contend that B, which denies it in toto, is equally true! Yet such is the reasoning (save the mark!) of nature’s worshippers, who presume to subject the mind of God to the suppositions of their foolish hearts! Surely, it may be truly said, that
Truth hath fled to brutish beasts;
And men have lost their reason.
But, this ‘nature’ the perverters of the gospel so devoutly worship, what is it? In the universal sense of the word, it is what God has caused to exist subject to unvarying necessity—the existence in nature; the necessity, its laws. Persons who see but little of God in any thing, are accustomed to attribute the phenomena they observe to Nature, as though Nature were the God in whom they live, and by whom all things consist. Nature, however, is a mere necessity, and exists simply because it is God’s will and pleasure. Those who are ‘taught of God’ never look to nature as an authority in regard to things spiritual and moral, because they do not venerate the creature rather than the Creator.
Man, as he exists by procreation, is part of that terrestrial nature called animal. When allowed to ripen into maturity under the uncontrolled influence of his innate propensities, ‘he has no pre-eminence over a beast’—Ecclesiastes 3: 19. His ideas and reasonings, if he have any, upon God, morality, his own constitution, origin, and destiny, are the workings of his veneration, conscientiousness, &c., styled by Paul ‘the thinking of the flesh;’ and the conclusions he arrives at are the teachings of nature, or Natural Religion. This religion begins in the flesh, and ends in gas; which is all the spirit it contains. Confucius, Zoroaster, Mahomet, the Council of Trent, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Campbell, and Joe Smith, not to mention a host of others, are all naturalists, whose systems of religion are all essentially the same. The reason of this is, because they have all come to their several conclusions by natural reason, to whose dictates the least foolish among them have paid more deference than to the written testimony of God. It is remarkable that all these systematising naturalists believe in disembodied immortal souls, heaven in the skies, a hell of fire and brimstone for separate spirits somewhere, the same sort of a devil, the salvation of creatures of all ages, &c. The thinking of the flesh upon its own consciousness, and the phenomena of animal magnetism, the means by which nature teaches, have conducted them to this universal and boasted uniformity. How common is it to hear them adduce ‘the universal belief of mankind’ in proof of an immortal soul in man, capable of a disembodied existence among the stars! They do not see that this is a substantial reason against the notion, seeing that all mankind are in a state of ignorance, and therefore think only the thoughts of nature, or the flesh, which God says are not his thoughts. The only difference between Confucius, or Zoroaster, and Mr. Campbell is, that the latter mixes up the sayings of apostles with the thinkings of his flesh, which the former were unable to do, not having the scriptures. This is the essential difference between that form of Natural Religion, called Campbellism, and the others styled Magianism, Buddhism, and so forth. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say they are the same in detail; but the same in origin, and that origin the thinking of the flesh, and not the revelation of the mind of God.
As the heresiarchs named were mere naturalists, the religions that go by their names, are mere natural religions. This is the nature of the religion of anti-christendom, call it Mohammedanism, Grecism, Romanism, or Protestantism. The thing is the same, whatever designation taste may give it. This is the reason why they are at variance with the Bible. The scriptures are from God, and reveal the thoughts, ways, and purposes of God; but the theologies, or orthodoxies, or whatever you may call them, are of the unenlightened flesh, and reveal the thoughts, or opinions, of the flesh concerning the Bible. Now, the thoughts of men and the thoughts of God, are as diametrically opposite as flesh and spirit. They do not, and can not, think in harmony; for ‘the carnal mind (to phronema tou sarkos, the thinking of the flesh) is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So, then, they that are in the flesh (think and act according to the dictates of nature) cannot please God.’
From this it is clear that men cannot ‘do by nature the things contained in the law,’ in the sense of doing them from the dictates of unenlightened flesh. Nature, in this sense, would impel them to do the very reverse, for all the precepts of God are in contrariety to the dictates of the fallen humanity we possess.
‘My thoughts,’ says he, ‘are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’
‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’
‘The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.’
These are not the dictates of nature, but of the spirit. Nature could not dictate such principles of conduct. It is as impossible as for a river of its own tendency to ascend a mountain.
The word used by Paul, and translated ‘by nature,’ is physei from phuo, ‘to cause to be.’ Physis is that which is caused to be; hence, to do by physis is to do that which is caused to be done; that is, to do in effect. ‘When the Gentiles do in effect the things contained in the law, they show the work of the law written in their hearts.’ This is intelligible enough. The writing the law there, causes them to do the things it contains, which is doing as the effect of the writing; or doing in effect, that is, by physis or by nature. The Jews had the law, but did not do its work; the Gentiles had not the law; but yielding its fruit in their lives, they showed forth the law’s work; and in so doing ‘kept the righteousness of the law,’ and put the Jews to shame. The Gentiles who obeyed the gospel, proved themselves to be better Jews than the hereditary sons of Abraham who had the law; ‘for he in the appearance is not the Jew; neither is the circumcision in the appearance, in the flesh: but he is the Jew in the hidden man; and circumcision is of heart by Spirit, not by letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.’ He that is a Jew by becoming Abraham’s Seed, through Jesus Christ, is the Jew to whom glory, honour, and incorruptibility in the kingdom for ever, with Messiah, is promised in the covenant made with Abraham before the times of the jubilees were arranged. Such is the solution of the matter as it appears to me.
EDITOR.
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